JOHANNESBURG: Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) says consumer inflation slowed to 6.2 percent in April from 6.3 percent in March. Core inflation, which excludes the prices of food, non-alcoholic beverages, petrol and energy, was at 5.5 percent from 5.4 percent in the previous month.
Citibank South Africa economist Gina Schoeman says the dip is welcome, but the country’s not out of the woods yet. “While inflation came down slightly, we still see that the ramp-up is going to happen in coming months because we are seeing food inflation starting to grow a lot of legs.”
Between January and February this year consumer prices increased by 1.4 percent, putting South Africans in a difficult financial position. The consumer price index (CPI) then was 7 percent, up by 0.8 percent in January. The data showed that food and non-alcoholic drinks increased by 1.1 percent in January to 1.3 percent in February. Economist Lesiba Mothata said this put more strain on consumers.
“The pace of this acceleration is concerning, it is expected. We do expect inflation to go up, but at this rate it really is not something that has been priced into markets and soon you may find that bond yields begin to respond with this deterioration in inflation expectation.”
